


I Remember Halloween

by DinosaurTheology



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Family, Friendship, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Memories, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8440654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: Erin Lindsay remembers something kind that someone did for her one Halloween. In a childhood like hers, the little things sort of stick out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own CPD but I love it, and the emotional heart of the show is Voight and Erin's father/daughter relationship. And so this is my Halloween special for this year... and I chose the costume in question because it was the most popular for girls fifteen years ago. In case anyone wondered.

Hank Voight leans over his desk late into the night of October 31st, glasses perched on the end of his nose, and wishes with every fiber of his being that it wasn't both highly illegal and against at least two dozen different regulations to puff on a Cuban while he dealt with the metric ton of bullshit piled up in front of him. It was pushing it, for that matter, to have the tumbler of sixteen year old Lagavulin single malt in his hand, after all, and, well... everyone had to have standards, right? Even if it was just because the smoke alarm was a dirty snitch that didn't know how to help a man enjoy the good things in life.

So, so much. Arrest reports that needed a sergeant's signature lingered here--not a single one of his wayward children, it seemed, could get their homework on his desk in time, a situation that he needed to address but most likely never would--and a citizen complaint against Al for "staring all creepy" at some gump he'd arrested for getting into some real Almond Joy outside the Lincoln Park Zoo hovered there. Another sheet was from 'Tonio, requesting cash to get a little something for Christmas for his best CI, Jasmine. Normal stuff and just life in the big city. 

It's just... he was gonna be here all friggin' night. And they wanted him to be a lieutenant! Jeez. According to some of the guys he knew, gentlemen like Sully and Cy and Horowitz, the paperwork just multiplied exponentially when they snatched the stripes off your shoulders and pinned a bar on your collar. That's why it was a bar, Sully said, because you wrote your ass off so much you needed to be at one. And for a captain? That was two bars cause it felt like you were behind em.

A knock at the door breaks his reverie on the privileges of rank, such as they are. "Enter."

She does. "Hey. It's me."

He snorts. "I been a police for a few years, kiddo. I can figure a few things out."

Erin Lindsey pouts. "Even in my costume?"

"I was gonna ask why a birthday clown threw up on you."

The pout evolves into a grimace. "I'm Raggedy Ann! Raggedy Andy is waiting for me downstairs."

His grin grows swift and evil. "You got him into that get-up?"

"Yep."

"Take pictures," he says. "Lots of em. And then put em on your instamajig." 

"Instagram, Hank."

"Whatever the hell it is," he agrees. He loses the glasses and wipes his strong hand across tired eyes. "You two kids going to a party?"

"Nah," she says. "Kim's organized a neighborhood Halloween Jamboree for all the kids down on the first floor of the district. Jay and I are gonna hang there for a while before we go home and watch scary movies or something. Y'know, cause we've become old people."

"Being old people means you didn't die young, right?" When she shrugs, he says. "It was good on Burgess to throw this together. That attitude she's gonna be the boss of us all one day."

"Hank, she's going as a 'sexy zombie policewoman' by putting make-up on the scars on her neck and shoulder and all where she got shot."

He actually has to laugh. "I didn't say it wasn't gonna be a scary world with her ruling over it. So... with a night like that planned why are you up here?"

"I dunno," she says. "Just wanted to check in. Make sure you knew you didn't have to be alone all night."

"Eh, 'Tonio will be around later, maybe."

"He, his sister and Sylvie Brett are taking Diego and Gabby's kid to trick-or-treat. They're supposed to link up with Kev and his little sister and drop by later."

"Al, then. We'll shoot the shit and talk about the bad old days."

"I think he's chaperoning a party for his daughter at Adam's apartment."

"Father of the year." He takes a sip of the Lagavulin and offers one to Erin. She accepts and shudders slightly at the warmth in her stomach. "So," he says. "You gonna get going? Raggedy Andy aint gonna wait all night."

"He will since I took his keys," she said. "And besides... I just wanted to check on you, like I said. You can come down, too. Hang out and help with the kids."

He can't help but smile and lay his big, hard hand over her small one. "Erin... I'm not a "neighborhood Halloween Jamboree" kinda guy. What, would I tell the kids that this was my 'Pissed-Off Old Cop' costume? C'mon."

"You could," she says. "You really could. And besides... you're more of a Halloween Jamboree guy than you think you are."

"Do tell."

"Yeah. Cause you made my best Halloween ever happen, the only one from when I was a kid that I have any good memories of at all."

"Yeah?"

She scratches at her elbow, is immediately the gawky, coltish girl he always sees her as anyway. "It's kind of a party day, y'know... Bunny just looked at it as an A-1 opportunity to get fucked up on the strongest thing she could find. I'd never had a costume, never even really gotten any Halloween candy."

He smiles. "You had a costume that year, though. Even though Camille tossed it together quick you were so excited... just a skirt and plaid skirt and knee socks. You were the Harry Potter girl, right? Harry Potterette or whatever."

"Hermione Granger," she says. "Camille said it was a great costume because she was all about working hard in school and doing your homework, so we worked hard on it even though I didn't have nearly enough hair to pull the whole look off."

"You were as cute as a button.

"Maybe a D.A.R.E. button that said 'This is yer brain on drugz,' or something," she says. "But that's not even the really important part, you know? I took Justin out trick-or-treating that night, for you guys. Camille didn't feel well, she had the flu or something, and you were working."

"I was always working."

"Pretty much." She takes a deep breath and goes on. "So I took your little Spider-Man around the neighborhood and he made out okay. No one was super into giving candy to the fifteen year old chaperone, though, especially one that looked as stringy and half-feral as I did back in those days. I didn't get a single piece, not even loser candy like Sixlets or root beer barrels or some shit like that, and I teared up. I honest to God teared up when I took him through the haunted house down at the District where you worked."

"Thank God I caught a double machete murder down in Chiraq that night," he says. A vicious chuckle rumbles in his throat. "Better than working in a haunted house though. Jesus."

She has to laugh too, knowing that her fate for the night is sealed. "Well, I don't know where you got it, or who murdered who, or if some gangsta wondered about the insane cop who took his street tax in candy that night... but..."

She struggles to find her words. "You brought me a friggin' trash bag full of candy, Hank. And good stuff, too. Not loser candy, like those awful chalk tasting Universal Monsters that Jay eats even when it's not Halloween but good stuff... freakin' Snickers and Reese's Pieces and Trix." She grins. "I gorged myself."

"Paid for it in cavities, I bet."

She giggles. "You know it. But that candy was the best thing I ever ate."

"Didn't know you were such a gourmet."

"You know very well what I mean."

"Yeah, sure." He takes another sip of the fine, fiery whiskey. "But I don't remember even doing it. Sorry..." He grimaces. "I worked so much OT back in those days that it all kind of runs together. I remember your costume, that Justin was Spider-Man... beyond that?" He shrugs. "Gang police's life is a hell of a life, you know that."

"Better than most. But I just wanted to tell you. Things are coming together for me now, in a big way... and I just wanted to let you know what it meant to me. What you mean to me."

He chuckles. It sounds like the same deep, awful growl he reserves for the worst of Beirut by the Lake's criminal underclass but... she knows the difference. "Erin, you helped me hide a man's body in a significantly less than shallow grave and lied to your superior officers about it and you're thanking me for candy?"

She shrugs. "I'm a complicated girl." She leans in, squeezes his broad shoulders and presses her lips against his forehead. It leaves a little smear of greasepaint. "Happy Halloween, Hank."

"And to you." He squeezes her around the waist. "Now get downstairs before you got Platt and Burgess yapping at you from both sides." He pauses a minute. "What has Trudy come as this year, anyway?"

"She and Mouch are Edward and Bella."

"I dunno what that is and I don't wanna," Hank says. He waves a hand. "Now beat it. I still got some paperwork to handle." He watches her go and doesn't see a grown woman, accomplished in her field. All he can see, right now, is a fifteen year old girl with scabbed knees, bruised eyes and a soul slashed and torn to ribbons. She wears a red sweater and plaid school skirt with knee socks and hair that has been teased in ways that it was never meant to curl. She opens the trash bag he drops in front of her and doesn't even taste the candy, not yet, she just cries. She's used to disappointment, after all, not chocolate.

So maybe he does remember, just a little bit. But there's work to be done, still, on a long night. Hank Voight drains his glass and gets back to it.


End file.
